


Picking Apples

by ManipLoki



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Burns, Gen, Mythology - Freeform, Nudity, Shapeshifting, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 04:44:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17237660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ManipLoki/pseuds/ManipLoki
Summary: Originally written for a writing challenge, this short one shot seems like a fairy-tale story. Loki is on a mission and he has to sacrifice something special and maybe some flesh, before he can get what he wants.





	Picking Apples

Loki stepped out of the shadow path and into the deep cavern. This was as far as he could teleport. The rest he would have to go on foot. 

The cavern was huge and deep. Loki had to tread quietly and carefully. One false move could bring the entire ceiling of stalactites down upon him. Like dragon fangs. Even with Loki’s skilled magic, he doubted he could dodge them all. For now it would be best to be cautious. 

He made his way through the dangerous dark until he came to a door. A thick heavy door made out of Uru. He snatched his hand away from where it lingered near the handle. The Uru door glowed where he nearly touched it and received a singed hand. Loki stepped back. He doubted it would work, but he had to try. He had not come all this way to leave empty handed. 

Loki weaved spell after spell, to try and break, open and unlock the enchanted door. But each attempt ended with gold sparks dissolving into the darkness. No. There was only one way to open this door and it would come at a great sacrifice. And even once the sacrifice was made, did not guarantee his quest so easily won. It was a risk. A risk that he could lose everything. 

But if Loki was successful...then the sacrifice, the price he had to pay...was worth it. Loki lifted his left hand and removed the golden ring from his fourth finger. Loki gritted his teeth as he presented the ring to the door. A notch opened, just large enough for the golden ring and the labradorite stone it held. Loki held his breath as he dropped the ring into the notch. 

The great silver colored door began to glow, like heated metal it turned to a bright red orange. Loki’s face was an expressionless mask as the gold of the ring melted and the stone was swallowed and vanished. With a great rumbling, Loki pressed himself against the door. The burning metal stripped him of his flesh. There was just a small alcove of protection close to the door. It was either be burned or crushed by the falling stalactites. They crashed and crumbled around his feet. Loki growled at the burning of his flesh. 

Then the door disappeared and Loki tumbled to the ground. He landed face first into green grass. Green grass that held the scent of...apples. Loki allowed himself a moment of rest and his magic to gather enough to heal and soothe his burnt flesh. Then he pushed himself up. He had made it. 

All around him was a beautiful garden. Tall green hedges formed walls and corridors. It was eerily silent. Loki could hear the sound of water running. The sky above him was blue with simple white puffy clouds. It looked like a painting. There was no sun, but it was clearly day. The clouds held perfectly still, like a painting. Like a Midgardian painting, there was no movement. There was no wind. It was the strangest of realms. There was this sense of life, but it was a still life. Like as if everything was frozen in time. Except for the sound of flowing water. Loki slowly moved forward.   
The garden was a maze. On each corner, Loki was sure it was the same fork he had just walked passed. He was sure he had turned left at the winged statue, but he found himself right back at it at the next corner. Slowly frustration crept into his pace. After making no turns and running as quickly as he could, he found the slight imprint of his body on the grass where he first landed in the garden. 

“Enough of this!” Loki growled. He suddenly changed forms, into that of a falcon. He could fly over the hedges and find the center of this garden labyrinth. Loki stretched out his wings. He allowed for a practice flap before shooting up into the air. His strong elegant wings took him higher. But the hedges grew higher as he climbed higher. Loki’s wings beat strongly, over and over, higher and higher. But the hedges grew with him. When he stood in his Aesir form, the hedges seemed to only be a few feet higher than his head. 

Now as a falcon, looking down, the maze corridor he flew up from was but a tiny bright green speck. All around him was hedge. Loki swiftly gave up, the wretched hedges were enchanted. He would have to play her game if he wanted to be successful. Loki stopped his frantic beat and allowed himself to gently circle back down to the ground. He returned to his Aesir form before he could touch the ground. He sighed. He would have to do this the hard way. 

Loki took his time as he made his way through the labyrinth. He brushed his hand against the hedge as he walked. Every now and then he attempted to alight the hedge. But it had no affect. All it did was waste his seidr.

He had been walking for more than an hour when his hand, brushing the hedge wall, suddenly sank in. Loki hesitated and turned to look. He felt the area with his other hand. His hands pushed easily through. Loki cautiously knelt down to inspect it. 

“Ah, finally,” Loki said with a smile, “A secret passage.” Loki bowed his head as he slipped through the hole. 

On the other side of the hedge was more hedges shaped as a circle of wall around-... Loki’s breath caught in his throat. 

“At last,” Loki said with a smirk on his face. Before him was a silver tree and hanging from it were many golden apples. 

Loki approached the tree. He reached out and brushed his fingers against the golden fruit. Loki hummed in contentment, they shimmered under his touch. Their shine was so perfect that Loki could see his reflection in each one of them. When his fingers disturbed the resting fruit, the scent of them swirled around him and made his mouth thirst for them. 

“They’ll do you no good.” 

Loki jerked his hand back from the fruit and swirled around. 

Before him stood a woman. She completely nude. Her long golden hair fell in locks around her full breasts. 

“Idunn,” Loki said in a mock bow. 

“Loki, Silvertongue, Liesmith, Laufeyson. Pray, tell me how you managed to escape Odin’s dungeons?” 

“That would be telling,” Loki said, he moved away from the woman, putting the tree between them. He reached once more for an apple. 

His movement was stopped when a vice like grip of Idunn’s hand wrapped around his wrist. Loki glanced back. How quickly she made the movement! For Loki did not see her move. 

“You storm into my gardens, to pick my apples and you cannot even greet me in respect, I am Idunn, but is that all you know of me?” Idunn pulled Loki’s hand to her breast. Loki tried to pull away, but her grip was much too strong. 

Loki hissed as her grip on his hand had a strange effect on him. Loki watched in morbid fascination as his slender ivory fingers suddenly turned gray and wrinkled. It was as if all the water in his flesh was pulled out of his hand at once. It quickly came to resemble and old man’s hand. His hand felt weak and dry like fall leaves. 

“Idunn, she who renews, goddess of spring, goddess of youth, keeper of the golden apples,” Loki quickly began to recite as her grip threatened to snap his suddenly weakened hand and wrist. 

Idunn released him. Loki pulled his decrepit hand close to him. He stared in awe as it returned to its pristine slender form. He flexed his hand, it was back to as it was before. 

“The boy knows respect after all, but you come here as a thief, through secret doors, you think you can just take what is mine, without me noticing?” Idunn asked him. 

“The hole in the hedge was not made by me. I was quite lucky to happen upon it. But I entered your realm fairly and I paid a great price for it,” Loki told her. 

“Ah, yes...this…?” Idunn asked. She held her index and thumb close together and with a shimmer the ring he sacrificed appeared between the digits. 

Loki gritted his teeth at the sight of it. 

“So small, yet so precious. I wonder what your beloved will say when you admit that you traded it for a selfish treasure immortals have no need of?” Idunn asked cruelly. Loki glared but his lips turned up in the corners. 

“That does not look like the gaze of a repentant man,” Idunn commented. 

“Idunn, goddess of spring and this golden treasure. Will you not accept my sacrifice as payment for one of your apples?” Loki asked, that same expression. 

“You know what these will do, once consumed?” Idunn asked. 

“I am aware.” 

“Devouring one will not stop death, you must realize. Once hit with a deadly blow, an immortal is quite easily dead, you realize?” 

“I am aware,” Loki repeated with a frustrated growl. 

“Taking one of these for yourself will do nothing for you, it will not extend your life beyond the fatal blow. And you are already immortal, what need do you have of this fruit that bestows immortality?” Idunn asked. 

“If I answer you, will you allow me to take one?” Loki asked. 

Idunn sighed as she placed the ring onto her own finger. Loki forced himself not react at the blasphemic gesture. 

“Very well. Take an apple and explain yourself to me,” Idunnn ordered. 

Loki looked up to the fruit hanging in the tree. He reached for the brightest, the shiniest, the one with the perfect scent. He plucked it from its perch. He held the gift of immortality in his hands. With a gesture and a wave he sent the fruit into his dimensional pocket for safe keeping. Then he turned to Idunn. 

“An immortal sentenced to a mortal realm bears great loneliness, with your gift, I will not be sentenced to live that existence alone…”

Loki lifted his hand to test the shadow paths. Of course it would be easy to leave, it was getting there that was the great task. 

“And the ring?” Idunn asked before Loki could leave. 

Loki turned and looked back, “What of it?” 

“Will she forgive you for giving it away, to another woman?” Idunn asked. 

Loki shrugged, “My love will stand with me through many great trials, one lost ring isn’t enough to topple all we have built.” Loki slipped back through the shadow path, his quest for picking an apple...a success.


End file.
